This is a super HELPFUL piece! I absolutely love it.
BUT. My pushback:
The last section on male/female/sexuality - Your supposed Anabaptist response is rooted in historic anabaptist reading of ... queer theory?? Eh?!? Did I miss something...theological somewhere??
You're going to get us local church pastors, boots-on-the-ground types KILLED. Centering queer theory/post structuralism and whatnot makes this piece impossible to pass to DEE friends in my congregation. I've read you a number of times on this, the queer theory and etc obv has great value to you but your posts and writings are so full of implications, innuendos even, I can only guess at the philosophy/theory behind it. And I'm *a bit* more well-read than my congregants. The bridge you offer from this philosophical background to a true DEE congregant cannot span the chasm!
IS IT AT ALL POSSIBLE TO REWORD THIS TO CENTER HISTORIC, ANABAPTIST VIEWS/PRACTICES OF MARRIAGE/CHURCH LIFE/HEADSHIP/EQUALITY??
There are absolutely zero mennonites in rural Minnesota, ie historically anabaptists (but obv coopted by DEE), who would ever imagine framing the discussion this way. Please give me resources from within anabaptism!
yeah .. hah .. I admit a bit confusing ... for me (emphasis here on "for me").. the (Neo) Anabaptist approach maintains the church-world distinction (in a way the PLR does not)...in a noncoercive, presence, epistemological way that preserves witness ... (in a way the DEE does not). Part of this enables a deconstruction of the world ... to discern sin, brokenness, as well as God at work, goodness in the world ... already ... This engagment is far beyond the Christendom assumptions that undergird the DEE and PLR. I suggest that post structuralism, queer theory aids us in this kind of navigating sexuality/gender... in a signifcant and important way. We are disavowed of a bland essentialism ... that we are simply created the way we are ... that underwrites how we see understand desire, attraction, bodies, in both DEE and PLR. It opens pathways to deconstruct the sins and antagonisms.. which make way, clear paths for the presence and power of Jesus to do the work of discerning, healing, reconciling amd transforming within these matrixes. Oddly ... this is what clarifies things for me in a way that enables me to be orthodox in my own understandings and outworkings of sexuality. BUT I ADMIT ... this may seem counter intuitive to my DEE and PLR friends... so much more discusssion and work is required ...but this is where we are IMO ..in the current conflictual antagonisms surrounding sexuality and gender.
I am vaguely familiar with examples of the Church's resistance to romanticism, expressivist/individualist understandings of marriage and human sexuality. Have read examples but failed to collect them into something useful. The Holy Spirit has been at work in the Church for 2000 years tho. I think we can do better than starting from post-isms etc and if we want to have any influence in our historically evangelical congregations, we will have to. Sort of, "To the evangelicals I became as an evangelical, so as to win the evangelicals. I have become all things to all people..." I think your queer theory et al will work real good going the PLR direction.
Thanks for the clarification David, I think Mike Knott summarized a bit of the head-scratching that follows your essay for many of us trying to swim the waters between DEE and PLR.
I'm late to this party but I like quite a lot of what you've written. Do you think neo-anabaptists have a different attitude to the cosmos compared to the original founders of the movement? The folk I've read from the early days feels very dualistic, world-hating and eschatalogical. Yes, there is a 'city on a hill' element, but there is also an 'escape the world' element.
Here in the UK writers like Stuart Murray-Williams have contextualised the work of the American Mennonites like Krieder and Kraybill even further, so it doesn't seem much like the anabaptism of Grebel, Simons and Hut.
I would nuance some of these differently but I love the core argument. It lines up with my own theological training (primarily Missional theology à la Newbigin and Christopher Wright) and I see the relevance for working with marginalized people like native Canadians (my primary ministry milieu). Distinguishing between how God works in the church and how he works in the world addresses so many problematic Christendom ideas and behaviours.
This is a super HELPFUL piece! I absolutely love it.
BUT. My pushback:
The last section on male/female/sexuality - Your supposed Anabaptist response is rooted in historic anabaptist reading of ... queer theory?? Eh?!? Did I miss something...theological somewhere??
You're going to get us local church pastors, boots-on-the-ground types KILLED. Centering queer theory/post structuralism and whatnot makes this piece impossible to pass to DEE friends in my congregation. I've read you a number of times on this, the queer theory and etc obv has great value to you but your posts and writings are so full of implications, innuendos even, I can only guess at the philosophy/theory behind it. And I'm *a bit* more well-read than my congregants. The bridge you offer from this philosophical background to a true DEE congregant cannot span the chasm!
IS IT AT ALL POSSIBLE TO REWORD THIS TO CENTER HISTORIC, ANABAPTIST VIEWS/PRACTICES OF MARRIAGE/CHURCH LIFE/HEADSHIP/EQUALITY??
There are absolutely zero mennonites in rural Minnesota, ie historically anabaptists (but obv coopted by DEE), who would ever imagine framing the discussion this way. Please give me resources from within anabaptism!
yeah .. hah .. I admit a bit confusing ... for me (emphasis here on "for me").. the (Neo) Anabaptist approach maintains the church-world distinction (in a way the PLR does not)...in a noncoercive, presence, epistemological way that preserves witness ... (in a way the DEE does not). Part of this enables a deconstruction of the world ... to discern sin, brokenness, as well as God at work, goodness in the world ... already ... This engagment is far beyond the Christendom assumptions that undergird the DEE and PLR. I suggest that post structuralism, queer theory aids us in this kind of navigating sexuality/gender... in a signifcant and important way. We are disavowed of a bland essentialism ... that we are simply created the way we are ... that underwrites how we see understand desire, attraction, bodies, in both DEE and PLR. It opens pathways to deconstruct the sins and antagonisms.. which make way, clear paths for the presence and power of Jesus to do the work of discerning, healing, reconciling amd transforming within these matrixes. Oddly ... this is what clarifies things for me in a way that enables me to be orthodox in my own understandings and outworkings of sexuality. BUT I ADMIT ... this may seem counter intuitive to my DEE and PLR friends... so much more discusssion and work is required ...but this is where we are IMO ..in the current conflictual antagonisms surrounding sexuality and gender.
I am vaguely familiar with examples of the Church's resistance to romanticism, expressivist/individualist understandings of marriage and human sexuality. Have read examples but failed to collect them into something useful. The Holy Spirit has been at work in the Church for 2000 years tho. I think we can do better than starting from post-isms etc and if we want to have any influence in our historically evangelical congregations, we will have to. Sort of, "To the evangelicals I became as an evangelical, so as to win the evangelicals. I have become all things to all people..." I think your queer theory et al will work real good going the PLR direction.
I greatly appreciate what seems a viable gospel-alternative to the problems of DEE and PLR that you point out.
Thanks for the clarification David, I think Mike Knott summarized a bit of the head-scratching that follows your essay for many of us trying to swim the waters between DEE and PLR.
I'm late to this party but I like quite a lot of what you've written. Do you think neo-anabaptists have a different attitude to the cosmos compared to the original founders of the movement? The folk I've read from the early days feels very dualistic, world-hating and eschatalogical. Yes, there is a 'city on a hill' element, but there is also an 'escape the world' element.
Here in the UK writers like Stuart Murray-Williams have contextualised the work of the American Mennonites like Krieder and Kraybill even further, so it doesn't seem much like the anabaptism of Grebel, Simons and Hut.
I would nuance some of these differently but I love the core argument. It lines up with my own theological training (primarily Missional theology à la Newbigin and Christopher Wright) and I see the relevance for working with marginalized people like native Canadians (my primary ministry milieu). Distinguishing between how God works in the church and how he works in the world addresses so many problematic Christendom ideas and behaviours.